Top 3 Reasons For Choosing Location Independence As My Goal

Today I wanted to discuss the top 3 reasons why I chose location independence as my number one goal in life.  Ever since I first started telling my friends and colleagues that my goal was to be location independent, I was met with some resistance.  Don’t get me wrong, there was plenty of support as well.  But overall, most people thought I was nuts.

“Why do you not want to put down roots?”

This was a question that kept coming up a lot.  A close second was “Why are you afraid of commitment?”

The fact is wanting to have location independence has nothing to do with fear of commitments or not wanting roots.  There a lot of reasons why I choose to have location independence, but let’s go through my top 3 reasons for choosing it as a goal.

Reason #1 For Choosing Location Independence:

My first reason for choosing to be location independent is the fact that I hate the winter, and I want to live in perpetual warmth.

“So move to Florida,” they tell me.

Not so fast though.

While being in Florida in the winter sounds great, their summer is BRUTAL.  It is nothing but high humidity and 95 degree weather.  That is not the combination I had in mind.  Ultimately, I want to have a home base either at the Jersey Shore, or somewhere in the North East.  This is where the majority of my family and friends live.  Then I can spend 6 months out of the year in a warmer climate.

I don’t want to buy a place in a warmer climate.  I would rather rent short-term so I can try living in many different places around the world.

Which brings me to reason #2…

Reason #2 For Choosing Location Independence:

Ahh, the world.

I want to see all of it.  Experience all of it.

This may be my biggest reason for wanting to choose location independence as my goal in life.  Traveling is one of my biggest passions.  I am not talking about the four-day trip to the Caribbean, although I like those too.

What I am talking about is submersion.

I love staying where the locals live.  It is exhilarating diving into their culture.  I love trying to hack my way through their language.

That is why I am looking forward to spending three to six months per location.  I am not looking to stay in a hotel, but rather rent a home or apartment.  Websites like Airbnb.com and Vrbo.com make this easy to do.

Reason #3 For Choosing Location Independence:

Dollars and cents.

I love America.

I love the freedoms it affords me.

But the reality is, it can be an expensive place to live.  This is especially true if you like to live the good life.  Well, for me, there is no other type of life worth living.  I don’t want to pinch, scrape, and save my entire adult life so that hopefully I make it to “retirement age.”  There, I can continue to watch my pennies so that I don’t outlive my money.

No thanks.

By choosing to be location independent, I can control the type of lifestyle I want to live more easily.

Think about it this way, if the majority of my business interests are online, I can work from anywhere in the world.  Because I am a U.S. citizen, and America is currently where I am basing my operations from, most of my income will be in dollars.  Now, let’s say I spend 6 months of the year in Thailand.  My income is still in dollars, but my cost of living is considerably less.  This means I am able to save more money, which means I can invest more money.  The more money I save and invest, the quicker I can become financially independent.

 

Take a look at this chart I found showing the differences in living expenses between Philadelphia and Phuket:

This is just one city out of thousands that we can look at and choose to live.

So, do you see why I am choosing location independence as my #1 goal?